Sven on Football Focus Saturday

[marbelladave]

"Sven's celebrity status" is built upon his unique history as one of the most successful football coaches in the history of the game and the interest and often inventive journalism of those who have been so obsessed with the batchelor lifestyle of this unmarried man.

If it's "all about Sven" then Sven appears to have always been "all about football". It is obviously his first and last love since he has no need for further wealth and those who have observed his continued dignified lack of interest in the media spot light may ponder if his own absence from the media circus outside of "duty" interviews.

Compared with some media whore managers, Sven appears to be a shy and retiring recluse outside of those measured and required media meetings?

Compared with Capello and quite a few overpaid and underachieving premier league club coaches, Sven must surely represent amazing value for money for both his past employers and Leicester City?

Personally I have no issue with Sven's lifestyle but it is this and not his ability as a manager that drives his celebrity which spreads well beyond football.

I have little doubt that within the club Sven is "all about football", and very possibly the best manager we could have got at this time but whether he wants to be or not, he is at the center of a media circus.

This may even be a good thing, it takes pressure off the team and off the players...

[Matt]

The bald guy doing the reports from football grounds across The UK and overseas was a right twat towards Sven... He was trying so hard to be funny. It just didn't work.

He's a twat full stop.

(If it's same bloke as I think you mean )

[B52]

I have little doubt that within the club Sven is "all about football", and very possibly the best manager we could have got at this time but whether he wants to be or not, he is at the center of a media circus.

This may even be a good thing, it takes pressure off the team and off the players...

Football today is a media circus. Look at the value of players. It's more about how many shirts they sell.

What we got now is a great oppurtunity to get more fans all over the world. This is what football is about today.

The only problem is that a lot of backstabbers crawl out and tries to attack everything that they think is wrong with this.

[marbelladave]

Football today is a media circus. Look at the value of players. It's more about how many shirts they sell.

What we got now is a great oppurtunity to get more fans all over the world. This is what football is about today.

The only problem is that a lot of backstabbers crawl out and tries to attack everything that they think is wrong with this.

I would totally accept what you say if we were talking about top EPL sides, but for a more modest club like ours I kind of hoped that links to fans and proper football values still exist.

I appreciate that this is a very old fashioned view but I had always hoped that we could remain primarily as a local, Leicester club and still enjoy a degree of success as we did under MON. Turning our club into a second or third rate 'global brand' is not what I want to see, though it is, short of some kind of local 'sugar daddy' figure spending far more money than is reasonable, the only way to take the club into the EPL in the short term.

I do fully understand that football no longer works in the way it did in my youth and I do try and embrace the changes, I have been very positive about Sven and the two 'new' players we saw on saturday were great to see, very impressive. However I do not much enjoy the rather sterile environment of modern games, the whole 'matchday experience', as packaged and served up by the club is not to my taste and I miss the connection with the players that used to be so common in the past.

I know I am old fashioned and I am not whinging (or God forbid backstabbing) but simply trying to articulate the mixed feelings that I and many others have about the changes that are happening to our club.

[B52]

I would totally accept what you say if we were talking about top EPL sides, but for a more modest club like ours I kind of hoped that links to fans and proper football values still exist.

I appreciate that this is a very old fashioned view but I had always hoped that we could remain primarily as a local, Leicester club and still enjoy a degree of success as we did under MON. Turning our club into a second or third rate 'global brand' is not what I want to see, though it is, short of some kind of local 'sugar daddy' figure spending far more money than is reasonable, the only way to take the club into the EPL in the short term.

I do fully understand that football no longer works in the way it did in my youth and I do try and embrace the changes, I have been very positive about Sven and the two 'new' players we saw on saturday were great to see, very impressive. However I do not much enjoy the rather sterile environment of modern games, the whole 'matchday experience', as packaged and served up by the club is not to my taste and I miss the connection with the players that used to be so common in the past.

I know I am old fashioned and I am not whinging (or God forbid backstabbing) but simply trying to articulate the mixed feelings that I and many others have about the changes that are happening to our club.

Thanks for a good answer. I agree with most of it.

[davieG]

I would totally accept what you say if we were talking about top EPL sides, but for a more modest club like ours I kind of hoped that links to fans and proper football values still exist.

I appreciate that this is a very old fashioned view but I had always hoped that we could remain primarily as a local, Leicester club and still enjoy a degree of success as we did under MON. Turning our club into a second or third rate 'global brand' is not what I want to see, though it is, short of some kind of local 'sugar daddy' figure spending far more money than is reasonable, the only way to take the club into the EPL in the short term.

I do fully understand that football no longer works in the way it did in my youth and I do try and embrace the changes, I have been very positive about Sven and the two 'new' players we saw on saturday were great to see, very impressive. However I do not much enjoy the rather sterile environment of modern games, the whole 'matchday experience', as packaged and served up by the club is not to my taste and I miss the connection with the players that used to be so common in the past.

I know I am old fashioned and I am not whinging (or God forbid backstabbing) but simply trying to articulate the mixed feelings that I and many others have about the changes that are happening to our club.

Ditto

[MC Prussian]

He's a twat full stop.

(If it's same bloke as I think you mean )

It's Mark Clemmit:

There's also a good article on the Football League Show here:

http://realityrant.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/thefootballleagueshow/

[Thracian]

It's almost like we're a big club again! Sven is in the Sun, on FF, decent signings after some shockers recently. Frankly I'm getting a bit of a lob on at the thought of all this

It's about time we had a higher profile and started to recognise what a great club ours could be - but i'd be a lot happier if we did some proper shouting on the pitch as well instead of being all negative like we were in the second half against Hull.

Cos the two attitudes just don't go together.

Our fans are as bad as the club has been in being happy to win "ugly" but my dearest hope is that Eriksson shows the courage to win with the same style and panache as he seems to reflect in the media.

We should have one attitutde when we score a goal - and that's to score another. It becomes a mental attitude and one which can have the effect of winning points for nothing because the opposition starts planning nothing more than to contain us - like Newcastle in Keegan's day and Liverpool in Shankly's day.

But you have to adopt that attitude. And we don't seem to have it yet - either on the pitch or in the stands. The lack of belief is still so tangible it's almost ingrained.

My youngest son is cruising the world in the chef's job of his dreams, not because he was lucky or defensive or full of self doubt, but because he attacked, made it happen and didn't let anything deflect him from his aims.

We've got to do the same. We've got to become single minded about scoring goals to win games, not weighed down by the idea that if we go ahead we've got to worry about the opposition equalising. And that seems like a big road to cross for us. Because of all the money involved we've forgotten how to enjoy our football and how to make it so thrilling that the crowd gets excited. At the moment we're just functionaries and the ground has hardly any atmosphere at all.

[Winchester]

BLIMEY!!!!!!!!!! What station were you listening to??

NPR (national public radio) It was at 5am and actually from the bbc world service that they broadcast overnight. but it still counts!

I imagine there were a lot of farmer's out milking the cows wondering who these Lester and Sven fellas were.

[marbelladave]

Thanks for a good answer. I agree with most of it.

Ditto

Thanks...

I have lived and worked away from Leicester for most of my adult life making regular attendance all but impossible until the last couple of years.

There was a time in the 90's that I worked regular hours and lived in west London, I had not been to a city match in years ans still did not really have the time for the traveling so I once again started going to Chelsea home games, as I had in the seventies. The 'sexy football' under Hoddle, Gullit and Vialli was good fun but I lost interest with the arrival of Abramovich and the money!

This coincided with a move out into the grean and pleasant lands of Chiswick, so I thought I would see if I could 'get involved' with my local club, Brentford. They are a a friendly welcoming club, it was still possible to join in after the games, chat to (some of) the players and staff over a drink or two and generally feel part of the club.

Unfortunately it was not my club, no sense of shared history, no memories of watching them as a boy, in fact none of the things that really tie you to your club, shame. It was this lack of a connection with anyone other than Leicester that eventuallt brought me back into the fold. Even though we had, by then, moved to southern Spain I found myself catching the Easy Jet flight at the crack of dawn anytime City were playing close to a suitable airport, Gatwick mostly. I got to see a fair few games in and arrounf London and the south coast, though getting to the Walkers was a pig unless staying overnight and doubling the cost.

At the end of the 'Holloway relegation' we had to return to the uk for family reasons, we live in Harrow on the Hill, our nearest proper stadium is actually Wembley, just 1 stop on the fast train, (3 stops on the tube) to give you an idea where I am. On a good day I can get from home to the Walkers in under 2 hours, though good days are actually fairly rare. Away games in the south east are a doddle but I rarely get to the northern wastelands, tonight being out of the question for example.